


one of these nights

by Kamiizumi



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, M/M, The tale of Hades and Persephone, featuring soondoongdo as everyone's favorite hellbeast trio, minsung - Freeform, minsung season | colourful autumn, skz greek gods au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27173737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamiizumi/pseuds/Kamiizumi
Summary: Six months, six months, he had been told, and yet six months seemed so insignificant in the eons he’d already spent, signing away the final fates of the dead as they arrive at his doorstep, waiting to see if they would suffer for time immemorial, or be granted peace and asylum in the fields of Elysium. Six months, Minho thought, six months? Pfft, absolute horseshit in the grand scheme of things. He could wait six months for Jisung to return, six months for Zeus’s little condition to fulfill itself.Six months, the lord of the underworld realized, was six months too long.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71
Collections: MINSUNG SEASON: Colourful Autumn 2020





	one of these nights

**Author's Note:**

> happy last day of minsung season [b l a c k/w h i t e]! it was such a rush writing for this event, and i really tried my best to challenge myself not only by thinking of unique scenarios to apply to the colors, but also to try and produce quality pieces for each day of the event. i really wanna extend a thank you to the mods for organizing this event and getting the preparation and information out, you're all such blessings <3
> 
> for this color theme, i had originally planned out something a bit more depressing, but i didn't think it was appropriate as an ending for a really unique and creative event! thus, i decided to go with this greek gods au, and i sincerely hope you enjoy reading it! (also, happy halloween to everyone!)
> 
> if you wanna all the submissions for the event, please check out https://twitter.com/minsungseason on twitter!

Scribble. Souls. Tithes.

Scribble. Scrolls. Money.

Scribble. Gold –

Minho slams his hands against the marble desk in front of him and unceremoniously curses under his breath, drawing hushed, anxious whispers from the spirits all congregated in the room. The pot of ink he had just been using has entirely tipped over, splashing midnight liquid on the parchment in front of him.

The timid spirit standing in front of his grand bureau, a little girl who can’t be any older than eleven, quietly speaks up, and the spirits in the room once again fall into hushed whispers.

“...My lord, is everything alright?”

Minho raises his face from where he’d buried it in his hands and looks down in front of his desk to the pair of bright yet lifeless eyes staring right at him.

“...It is nothing, shade. I just...excuse me, everyone, I need a moment of reprieve.” Without further preamble, the lord of the dead shambles out of his throne and trudges out of the room, ignoring his subjects’ bows in deference.

His feet softly pad across the lavish marble floors of his palace until they hit grass and dirt, and it is then that Minho comes to a stop, now finding himself at rest on a bench under one of his plentiful pomegranate trees.

“Pomegranates...damned pomegranates,” he mutters, rubbing his face as if to scrub away some unknown, unseen substance. “I should have given him the whole damn fruit to devour.” Minho digs his palms in his eyes and wills himself not to cry; the lord of the underworld doesn’t  _ cry _ (except for the one time that silly bard came passing through with his silly harp and his silly song), and the lord of the underworld certainly won’t cry  _ now _ , after the plenty of times he’s narrowly stopped himself from doing so.

His breath begins to stutter and he almost thinks he might break his iron resolve when a triad of soft mewling catches his attention. Minho raises his head to look behind his person, seeing his familiar trio of hell-beasts ambling over to his side. The three giant felines normally lurked in the shadows and only appeared when they pleased, or to tear the occasional trespasser into three equal pieces shared amongst them; it wasn’t surprising that they appeared now in their master’s time of distress, but Minho welcomed their company anyway.

The smallest of the three eagerly slink close to him, pressing its gargantuan head against his shoulder and staring at him with eyes like molten gold. A sigh slips out of Minho as he reaches over to scratch behind its onyx-colored ears.

“I don’t know how many times you’ve all come to my aid, but know that my gratitude would not be enough recompense.” As if in response, all three felines coddled the lord at once, prompting a thin smile to spread across his face. “Thank you,” Minho whispered, leaning into burying his nose into the dark fur of his beast.

Six months,  _ six months _ , he had been told, and yet six months seemed so insignificant in the eons he’d already spent, signing away the final fates of the dead as they arrive at his doorstep, waiting to see if they would suffer for time immemorial, or be granted peace and asylum in the fields of Elysium. S _ ix months _ , Minho thought,  _ six months _ ? Pfft, absolute horseshit in the grand scheme of things. He could wait six months for Jisung to return, six months for Zeus’s little condition to fulfill itself.

Six months, the lord of the underworld realized, was six months too long.

Minho doesn’t realize that he’s started crying until he feels the cool wetness staining his right cheek, dripping down onto his chiton. Even the ruler of the underworld experiences the pain of longing and loneliness, especially when they’ve had a taste of true companionship.

How many nights – if they can even be  _ called  _ that down in Hades, where the sky is eternally black – had Minho stayed up, thinking of the child of Demeter? Fair-haired with a smile that shone like Apollo’s gleaming chariot and rivaled that of Aphrodite’s (and Minho would never tell Hyunjin that, dreading another war that was sure to fill his workload up to the maximum). Even in the underworld, where life didn’t exist and just refused to be because of the powers that be...flowers sprouted from the footsteps he left on the dirt, and his jovial, excitable demeanor lightened the moods of the spirits in his palace.

Minho was smitten, has been smitten, and he wished he could climb up to Olympus to wring Eros by the neck, but...he’d rather just take the son of Demeter home down to Hades instead.

Ah, yes.  _ Home _ . The terms of the agreement that he and Demeter didn’t exactly see eye to eye on, and what led to her son spending half the year on the surface, and the other half here, fulfilling his duties as the  _ other _ king of the underworld. An agreement – a  _ challenge _ , really – that Minho thought he could easily surpass; and yet, his resolve wears parchment-thin, thin enough for the tears he’s shedding now to tear right in two.

Minho sniffles and hastily wipes away the tears on his face. The Olympians would erupt in roaring laughter if they saw the state the ruler of the underworld was in; Minho could not be bothered to imagine how his subjects might else react.

His breath stutters as his infernal felines press their gargantuan bodies closer to him. None of them were the son of the Demeter, but their presence always served to comfort him when he needed the aid the most.

“...Jisung, I miss you so much,” Minho whispers, closing his eyes and stroking the top of one of the hell beasts’ heads.

_ Flora. Sustenance. Succor. Life. _

His eyes shoot open and his posture immediately stiffens; in complete sync, his beastly pets do the same and slink back into the shadows like the underworld vanguards that they are.

_ There is...life in this household. _

Every muscle fiber in his body tenses up as the unmistakable sensation of  _ life _ and  _ living _ permeates the still, deathly atmosphere of the house of Hades. There is no question about it: someone has descended from the surface.

Minho immediately forces himself up off the marble bench under the grove of pomegranate trees. His fingers, clad in too many pieces of gold jewelry, twitch with anticipation; no one from the surface ever comes down into the underworld and intends to leave with their lives. Unless they’re already dead. Minho shakes his head as he speeds on back into the palace; his minor lapse in vigilance allowed someone to trespass but...a break from the monotony that is paperwork was something he’d been craving for a while now.

His imposing figure wafts through the formless spirits littering the halls of the palace, stopping their aimless wandering to bow to their new ruler. All is silent as Minho strides across the marble floors, his footsteps now leaving searing imprints on the stone, while his jet black hair lights up like flames, turning bright orange against the crown of gilded bone sitting on his head.

He ignores his servants’ calls, idly wondering if he needed to pull his spear out to deal with this intruder. Step by step, his pace quickens his path to the palace entrance, until it finally hits him: the telltale scent of citrus, pine needles, and carnations. Minho’s pace only  _ hastens _ , and now he’s broken into a full sprint for the gates of the house of Hades.

The sight that awaits him at the palace gates could have knocked him off his feet, like a gust of wind conjured by Hermes himself. 

The flowers sprouting right out of the barren banks of the River Styx, the flowing ivory and ochre robes wrapping around his lithe body, and the sun-kissed mop of hair on his head, topped with a delicate wreath of summer blossoms; it was the prince consort of the underworld himself, son of Demeter, and quite frankly, Minho’s one and only love.

Minho stands there agape as if someone had just performed a miracle in front of him – and miracles hardly happen down where the sun doesn’t shine. Standing behind the son of Demeter is the boatman Charon, who nods towards him respectfully. Charon tips his ragged, wide-brimmed hat over his haggard visage and steps back into his dinghy, his person jingling with the sound of rattling gold coins, before vanishing into the foggy void.

He returns his focus to the young man still standing on the banks of the River Styx, his youthful face stretched with the brightest of smiles. It was almost like Helios himself was shining down on him, and he quite looked like a phoenix in a sea of crows.

“Are you just going to stand there like a scarecrow or are you going to come here and – “

In an instant, the lord of the underworld is upon him, his stygian robes billowing behind him in a flourish. Minho takes the shorter man into a bone-crushing embrace, enough to force a breathy laugh out of Jisung. The son of Demeter briefly opens his mouth to speak but decides against it, instead opting to savor this first moment of contact in half a year.

“I missed you,” Minho murmurs into the soft cotton of Jisung’s chiton, drawing an all too knowing sigh out of the other young man.

“Clearly,” Jisung replies, his cheeks full as he reaches up to stroke at the god’s bright orange locks. “...You were about to lash out again, huh?”

“Don’t speak of it.” Minho punctuates his words with a snarl, before pulling away to hold Jisung at arm’s length. “That damned messenger, Jeongin, promised to get my letters for you up to Olympus, but I  _ never _ received any correspondence. How do you think that made me feel? I thought you’d forgotten all about Zeus’s decree and just decided to ignore me and – “

Jisung leans up to press a soft kiss onto Minho’s pouty lips, and it takes mere seconds for all the tension in the lord of death’s body to melt away.

“...I’m sorry, my mother must have intercepted any of the letters coming from down here,” Jisung whispered, reaching up to stroke the god’s cheek. “I had tried sending Jeongin down here with parchment as well, but I knew something was off when he never had anything for me every time he returned to Olympus.”

Minho inhales deeply and knocks his forehead against Jisung, letting his demeanor settle. Jisung chuckles as he watches the flaming orange of his hair fade back to black.

“I should have just made you eat the whole damn pomegranate.”

“You  _ know _ my mother wouldn’t like that. Besides, you should just come up with me to Olympus sometime; the others always worry that you’re working yourself to death,“ Jisung pauses to laugh, “Besides, it’s better than being by your lonesome down here all the time with the spirits of the deceased.”

Minho opens his eyes and regards Jisung with gold-flecked irises in a glare that could split the earth open.

“No. Absolutely not – we already talked about this; I’m  _ not  _ going up to Olympus. And certainly not when your mother is up there, waiting to slit my – “

“ _ Minho _ .”

“What?” His eyebrows furrow at the sprightly young man choosing to interrupt him, but Jisung instead pecks him on the cheek and pushes past him to drag him back into the palace by his arm.

“Stop being so negative. I’m  _ home _ , and I want to celebrate. Tell the servants to pull out the best of our liquor and invite everyone who’s anyone down here; I want everyone to know that I’m back to reclaim my throne. The  _ nicer _ one, at least.” Minho gives him a knowing glare, and Jisung responds with a smirk of his own. “No more doom and gloom while I’m here. Your court is always so lifeless when I’m not around – no pun intended. I hope you didn’t take down the cherry red drapes I had installed before I left.” 

They make it two steps before the hellcats of Hades slink out of the shadows and bar them entrance into the palace, all three of them regarding Jisung with their glowing golden eyes. “Ah, my beloved pets! Has the lord of the underworld been treating you kitties just fine in my absence?”

Jisung releases his hold on Minho’s arm to run into the oversized bundles of fur that are his kittens, who all purr around him with enough intensity to make the air vibrate. Minho allows himself to smile, watching the scene unfold before him. Jisung was right. There’s no reason for him to be upset now because...Jisung’s back home.  _ Their  _ home. His jeweled fingers twitch – the lord of the dead can wait for all eternity, but there was not a minute to spare if he wanted to make the most out of these next six months.

Minho marches over to Jisung and pulls him off of the cats, before crushing their lips together in a bruising kiss. Jisung lets out a muffled yelp before acquiescing and moving to wrap his arms around the god’s neck. When they stop for a breath, they simply stare at each other with flushed faces and cheeky smiles.

“Welcome home, my love.”

“Feels good to be back.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for tuning into this event and this journey with minsung with me haha! please check out other submissions in the minsung season collection as well as other submissions in https://twitter.com/minsungseason ! please stay hydrated and stay safe! happy halloween!
> 
> ps. lmk if you noted all the other skz as greek deities in this fic lmaoooo


End file.
